IT vendor sales teams gather each year to rev up their go-to-market engines at company rallies. Despite intentions, the annual conclaves can create roadblocks for partners eager to get deals done.
This year’s kickoff season stressed the close alliances between vendors’ direct sales teams and the channel. But not every partner is feeling the love — especially those at home. Partners told Channel Dive that vendor contacts aren’t responding to messages while attending multi-day sales kickoffs.
It’s an industrywide Q1 “hibernation,” BanaTech Consulting CEO Bana Qashu said.“Deals still move, clients still have deadlines, and ‘I’ll get back to you after SKO’ has become the channel’s version of an OOO auto reply.”
Partners didn't begrudge sales reps their annual get-togethers. They just found it ironic — and unhelpful — when a service-focused organizations goes offline for days at a time
“How do you make a plan with a straight face to say, ‘Oh, we're just going to disconnect for a week or 10 days and that's okay?’” ITBroker.com CEO Max Clark said.
The issue is no worse than it’s been in previous years, Mejeticks CEO Rob DeVita said — but it’s always been bad. And the impact is tangible.
The tech advisor model requires close collaboration between partner and provider. A vendor that doesn’t turn around quotes in a timely manner can slow sales momentum or lose the deal. In January sales are particularly crucial for TAs, who compound recurring revenue over the course of a year, DeVita said
Mejeticks runs its SKO in May for that reason. Moreover, his team members don’t turn on the auto-reply.
“When vendors pull channel managers and sales teams out of the market for multi-day sales kickoffs with little or no coverage, it directly impacts our ability to serve customers and drive revenue for those same vendors,” Devita said in an email. “The reality is the market doesn’t pause for internal meetings. Taking your field resources offline for three or four days at the start of the year sends the wrong message and costs everyone real selling time when momentum matters most.”
Operational habits
Ronnell Richards is a sales coach, channel consultant and former TA.
He said partners’ SKO frustration taps into a complicated dynamic: the always-on nature of the relationship between partners and channel managers. Channel managers operate “like a 7-Eleven” and not like a corporate entity,” Richards said.
The relationship structure is entrenched, according to Richards.
“People will work with you the way that you teach them to work with you. If you operate like you are open 24/7, that is now your baseline, and that is what the expectation is, as opposed to having a refined operating rhythm and structure to your business,” he said.
The situation highlights the vastly different lifestyles of the two worlds. TAs are by and large small firms hustling for their next deal run by entrepreneurs who work up to 100 weekly and take weekend calls.
Partners say they’re only asking for event organizers to give reps 45 minutes to an hour to answer emails.
“I don't think the expectation should be that you're going to drop everything and respond to every email instantaneously, but there is a reasonable cycle where you can't pretend like you're not looking at your email 57 times during the day,” Clark said.
In “the year of the partner,” Qashu thinks that’s a fair ask.
“Cheers to winning together this year,” she said.
